


Imago

by cuttooth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Affirmations of Love, Angst and Feels, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Canon Asexual Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Psychic Bond, Sensuality with boundaries, Softer than it sounds I swear, Telepathy, Tenderness in the eyepocalypse, moth jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27216436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttooth/pseuds/cuttooth
Summary: “Jon?” he asks tentatively, tightening his grip around the poker as it slips against his sweaty palm. The antennae twitch, and suddenly Martin knows that it’s Jon, the knowledge sliding into his mind in a surge of desperate affection, the same profound love he felt that first time he truly saw Jon in the fog of the Lonely.“Oh,” he whispers. “It really is you.”*Jon changes, but he’s still the same to Martin.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 72
Kudos: 531
Collections: Artefact Storage Monsterloving Event 2020, RaeLynn's Epic Rec List





	Imago

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Artefact Storage Monsterloving event, because moth Jon is fuzzy and should be petted. 
> 
> Also contains angst and mild body horror due to non-consensual physical transformation, because I can’t help myself. I don’t think its too heavy overall, but do mind the tags.

It’s almost laughable, how undramatically it happens.

There are no signs or portents, no forewarning that something momentous is coming. No agonized screams or rising static when it does. Martin simply goes to bed one night (not that nights are a thing anymore), leaving his boyfriend obsessively listening to tapes, and the next morning said boyfriend is gone and there’s an enormous papery... _something_ in the corner of the living room, standing there like an unordered and unwanted package.

(Frankly, Martin thinks with a numb hilarity he recognizes as a stone’s throw from panic, he would have expected a bit more pizzazz from the apocalypse.) 

Martin doesn’t have time to panic right now. He takes a few deep breaths to steady himself, then goes and walks around the house, calling Jon’s name to ensure he hasn’t curled up somewhere out of sight like an overgrown cat. Then he does it again, because clinging to futile hope is something he’s always been quite good at. Finally, he goes back into the living room.

The object in the corner is still there, unchanged. It doesn’t show any signs of being immediately dangerous, so Martin sets down the knife he brought from the kitchen and looks around the scene. There’s a tape recorder on the coffee table, which he recognizes as the one Jon brought with them from London. And there’s another on the floor, halfway lost beneath the sofa; Martin hasn’t seen this one before, which probably means it’s more interesting. He picks it up and sets it on the table beside its sibling. Takes a long, slow breath, and presses play.

For a while the recording is mundane, nothing he wouldn’t expect. It’s a recording of Jon listening to other tapes, the ones from the package: Gertrude and Gerard Keay, Tim and Sasha. The memories and missed chances Jon’s been stewing in for...well, for however long it’s been. Martin listens impatiently, not wanting to skip forward in case he misses something. And then, finally, the tapes stop and Jon begins talking. His tone is low and sonorous, and he’s talking about the house. Describing it as a trap, a consuming, malevolent presence. Talking about _them,_ their relationship, with such venom in his tone, calling it a comforting lie. Martin thinks he might be upset by that, if he was feeling much of anything right now.

As it is, he simply notes that it’s not quite clear whether the person talking is Jon. Of course it’s _Jon,_ obviously, but it doesn’t sound like him as himself. It sounds like one of his statements, like him as someone—some _thing_ else. 

_Tomb,_ the something on the tape says, and _chrysalis,_ and Martin finds his eye drawn back to the cigar shaped, vaguely organic object in the corner. 

“Oh...fuck,” he says. On the tape, Jon takes a few deep, shuddering breaths; Martin turns his attention back to it. 

“Oh,” says Jon, his voice weak and dazed. “That’s—that’s very strange. I feel rather…” There’s a shifting of fabric, as if he’s standing up, then the soft noise of footfalls crossing the room. Then nothing until the tape clicks off by itself. 

Martin stares over at the thing in the corner again. He can feel that his throat is dry, his heart racing, but his mind is blanketed with a calm clarity that he recognizes as compartmentalization. He got very good at that, while he was working for Peter.

His first thought is that he could probably pull the thing open with his bare hands, or failing that, the knife he has to hand. Except Martin remembers his GCSE Biology, he knows what happens to a caterpillar in a chrysalis. It sort of...dissolves into caterpillar soup, and then reconstitutes into a butterfly. He can’t know precisely what’s going on in this chrysalis (if it _is_ a chrysalis, which seems increasingly likely) but he can’t take the chance, can he? Can’t risk the possibility of—of— 

_Jon soup,_ his brain supplies without him asking it to, and he cuts off that line of thought immediately. Absolutely _not_ thinking about that. 

He should never have left Jon alone. It’s not as if he was even asleep, not really, tossing and turning on the mattress that’s always sagged but now feels as if it might subside into a sinkhole at any moment. It never does, of course, but it’s enough to startle him into wakefulness every few minutes, up from the shallow patchwork of nightmares that fill his dozing mind. He should have known something was wrong, when Jon didn’t come up eventually, but Martin supposed he was just in one of his moods—those were his exact thoughts, _he’s just in one of his moods—_ and it was best to leave him to it.

“Some mood,” he mutters darkly, and glares at the chrysalis again.

*

Martin waits. He’s always been good at waiting. 

The chrysalis sits in the corner of the living room for days (not that days are a thing anymore), and Martin watches over it. It’s difficult _not_ to look at, if he’s honest. Fascinating in the way that a wasp’s nest is fascinating, fragile and organic and a bit disgusting.

Martin sets his knife on the coffee table, keeps the fireplace poker near at hand. Just in case. _My chrysalis,_ the voice on the tape said, and Martin has to be ready for the possibility that what might emerge won’t be Jon anymore. The possibility that it won’t know him. 

(That it won’t love him.)

He writes down what he observes, in the notebook where he keeps his poetry. Not a poem, just a bullet pointed list of facts, because Jon will want to know everything about this thing once he’s out of there. He even makes a rough sketch of it, though he’s never been much of an artist. 

It is a little less than six feet tall, which is to say it is tall enough to accommodate Jon with room to spare, and appears to be made entirely of paper. Sheets and sheets of thin, yellowed paper, layered over and between each other until no gaps are visible at all. The sheets of paper are densely covered in markings, dark, faded scribbles that appear very much like words written in ink, except every time Martin looks too closely at them for too long he starts to get a headache. 

_They might not be actual words,_ he writes. _They might just be mimicking words, in the same way that the markings on a butterfly’s wings look like eyes to scare off predators. I’m not sure what kind of predator would be scared off by the prospect of reading, though. Jared Hopworth?_

Martin knows it’s probably ridiculous, writing all this down. He’s in denial, or having a breakdown, or something. But given the circumstances, he thinks he might be excused for choosing his coping mechanisms. 

He tries not to touch the chrysalis too much, because the paper is brittle. The sheets crumble far too easily, and the maybe-words crumble with them, and Martin worries that he might be hurting Jon somehow. He keeps feeling the urge to touch it, though, to rest his fingertips, his palms, his cheek against the papery dry mass that’s faintly warm on his skin. He’s not sure if it’s just loneliness, the weight of these not-days without Jon. Or if it’s some Beholding compulsion, driving its last, lonely assistant to care for its Archivist. 

Martin waits. He checks the locks on the doors, and puts another log on the fire, and watches the chrysalis in the corner of the room for any signs of life. He presses his ear carefully to its surface and says Jon’s name, talks to him, pleads with him, listens in vain for any answer. 

Martin waits, because there’s nothing else he can do. The world is screaming outside the windows and he can’t face it alone. He’s not brave enough on his own, not strong enough. He waits, and he thinks of sitting in hard plastic hospital chairs, always waiting, always hoping, but at least then he was able to see Jon’s face. Knew who it was that he was waiting for. 

(If whatever comes out of the chrysalis isn’t Jon, Martin will—

Martin will—

Well, he’ll wait and see.)

*

After what might be five days, if days were a thing anymore, the chrysalis opens. 

Once again, it’s all terribly undramatic, no indication that anything is going to happen until it suddenly does. Martin is sitting on the sofa, trying to read one of Daisy’s paperbacks, when there’s a dry sound of paper ripping. He looks up to see that a long seam has opened itself along the length of the chrysalis, little fragments of parchment falling in a shower to the ground. Martin gets to his feet, taking the knife in one hand and the poker in the other. Just in case. His heart is pounding. 

A set of fingers pushes through the tight crack, grasping at its edges, trying to find purchase. Another set pokes out alongside it—the other hand—and together they start to pull, widening the crack. The hands are _wrong,_ Martin realizes, not Jon’s hands, covered in what looks like dark fur. He is still taking that in when _another_ pair of hands push through the gap. They grab the edges of the opening slightly below the first pair and begin pulling in tandem, forcing the opening wider. 

“What the _hell?”_ Martin manages to say, and that’s as far as he gets before the front of the chrysalis gives way with a crunching sound and Jon _(god, please, let it still be Jon)_ takes a step out onto the carpet. He stumbles and staggers sideways, leaning against the wall to hold himself up as he slowly turns to face Martin.

The shape of him could still be Jon, neat and angular. He’s the right height. Except there are too many arms, the joints too sharply segmented, and is that a pair of _wings_ bunched up against his back, crumpled and damp looking? 

Jon’s face, the serious, careworn face that Martin loves, is changed. Instead of his dark gaze, a pair of enormous, multifaceted eyes meet Martin’s, shimmering metallic green in the firelight. Feathery antennae sprout above them, flexing slowly. He has no mouth, as far as Martin can see. 

“Jon?” he asks tentatively, tightening his grip around the poker as it slips against his sweaty palm. The antennae twitch, and suddenly Martin _knows_ that it’s Jon, the knowledge sliding into his mind in a surge of desperate affection, the same profound love he felt that first time he truly _saw_ Jon in the fog of the Lonely. 

“Oh,” he whispers. “It really is you.”

 _It really is,_ he knows again.

“I thought you’d left me,” Martin says. “I thought you were...gone, and I was going to be alone again. In all this...” 

He realizes the truth of it as he says it, and sits heavily down on the sofa, his knees buckling under him. Jon pushes away from the wall and comes to him, treading with exaggerated caution as if his center of gravity has shifted and he’s not quite sure of keeping his feet. He makes it to the sofa, and the joints of his legs fold up in a complicated motion until he’s crouching in front of Martin.

He’s so sorry, Martin knows, his antennae waving with distress. Jon never would have left him alone, if he’d had the choice. He loves Martin so much. _Knowing_ like this, it isn’t quite the sound of Jon’s voice in his ears, but somehow the knowledge has the same warm, rich tone in his head. Martin looks up, and gives a smile that feels watery even to him. 

“You’re all fuzzy,” he notes, and instantly knows that Jon is extremely indignant about being called _fuzzy._ Martin can’t help but laugh, though it sounds a lot more like a sob. His vision is getting blurry and he swallows the lump in his throat, all the fear and loneliness and grief of the past few days, those things he wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —let himself feel, suddenly sweeping over him.

“You are, though,” he insists, hearing his voice wobble, and gestures towards Jon’s antennae. “Can I?” 

Jon nods, his antennae bobbing. Martin lifts his hand to stroke one of them. It is silky to the touch, and Martin runs the feathery tufts through his fingers and across his palm, over and over. 

“God, Jon,” he says, smiling even as he blinks away tears. “What are we going to do with you?”

That, at least, Jon doesn’t know. 

*

Martin goes to make tea, which is to say he fills the kettle with something that looks like water from the tap and sets it to boil, and puts something that might be a teabag in a mug, and then pours one over the other and lets the result steep. Once it looks perfectly brewed, he picks the mug up and pours its contents down the drain, where they slosh or possibly skitter away. 

Jon stays in the living room. As long as they’ve been here, before and after...everything, ‘making tea’ has been Martin’s code for needing a few minutes to himself while the emotions he’s learning to feel again overwhelm him. Jon has been endlessly patient, giving him space when he needs it, and Martin thinks Jon could probably use a few moments as well. He might be the all knowing harbinger of the apocalypse, but having such a momentous physical change imposed on him like this has to be, well, _a lot_.

Once Martin no longer feels like he’s going to burst into tears, he goes back into the living room. Jon is curled up on the sofa, facing the wrong way, leaning against the sofa back for support while his wings—which, _wow,_ Martin really hasn’t taken all this in yet—lazily fan the air. They’re less crinkled than they were, stretching out and flattening, and Martin remembers that from nature documentaries, the way it takes time for them to dry and strengthen. Jon’s wings are moon-colored, patterned with spots and whorling patterns in black and green, like a myriad of staring eyes. 

Martin walks over and perches on the arm of the sofa. From here he can see that the underside of Jon’s wings looks different, marked with those same strange not-writings as the chrysalis. Jon’s head tilts to look at him, his antennae curling and Martin knows that he’s worried whether Martin is all right.

“I’m okay,” Martin says. “I mean, it’s a bit—well. You know. Are you—I mean, how does it feel? It must be...different?” 

It _is_ different, Martin knows. More than different—confusing and frightening. Jon doesn’t understand what’s happened to him much more than Martin does, only that this is how Beholding has chosen to shape its Archivist. The _why_ of it is inscrutable. All he recalls is being sunk in dark dreams, feverish and terrible, and then waking up to _this._ To the whole world looking different, feeling different, all his senses shifted a little to the left. His body alien, unknown. He keeps losing his balance. 

And threading through all that knowledge a deep river of guilt, because Martin shouldn’t have to deal with this. After everything he’s already been through, after Jon _ended the world_ just when they got a sliver of happiness, now he doesn’t even have a boyfriend who can _pretend_ to be human. Jon wouldn’t blame Martin for not even wanting to look at him. Martin feels the guilt in his own chest, heavy as a stone, and he won’t let Jon think that way. Not for a second. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he says fiercely. “What you look like doesn’t matter. I _love_ you, even if you grow ten more arms and an extra head. Okay?”

Jon’s head tilts to look at him, and Martin treats him to a stubborn glare. He might not be able to shove his feelings directly into Jon’s brain, but he doesn’t intend to be misunderstood about this.

“I love you,” he says again. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.” 

Jon loves him too, and he is so, so relieved and grateful to have Martin here with him. That gratitude, the love and trust behind it, push their way into Martin’s awareness and he feels his cheeks going warm.

“Of course I’m here, you daft sod,” he mutters. “As if I’d go anywhere without you.” He slides off the arm of the sofa onto the cushion, and pats the space beside him. “Come here.”

Jon sits beside him a bit awkwardly, half turned towards Martin so his wings can stretch out behind. All four of his hands rest nervously in his lap, and it really is strange, but it’s Jon; he’s always been strange and wonderful to Martin. 

He takes one of Jon’s hands in his. The hairs are soft and bristling, like one of those fancy shaving brushes, and beneath them the shape of it is familiar and beloved, long fingers gripping his own. Martin lifts it to his lips and presses a careful kiss to the back of it. A hand rests on his knee, a well-worn gesture, and then a third comes up to cup his cheek, and Martin starts in surprise. The touch retreats instantly and Jon is sorry again, because that was weird, wasn’t it? Martin gives a dismissive snort.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I just wasn’t expecting it.” He uses his free hand to pull Jon’s back to his face, the hairs tickling his skin pleasantly. Martin leans his head into the touch, rubbing his cheek against the bristling texture, and smiles. 

“Mmm, as I suspected, having a fuzzy boyfriend has upsides.” 

He can feel Jon’s amusement at that. A hand cups his other cheek, and it feels a bit odd but Martin can’t help being delighted at all four of Jon’s hands touching him lovingly. Jon’s face is very close to Martin’s, and there aren’t the usual features for Martin to read, but the tilt of Jon’s head, the gentle oscillation of his antennae, reflect the flood of warm affection that Martin can feel from him, the happiness that they’re together. 

Jon’s antennae brush Martin’s forehead and he giggles at the sensation, gently pushing them away, stroking his hands over the feathery silk of them. He leans back a little and meets Jon’s jewel-like eyes, holds his gaze steadily.

“Can I touch the rest of you?” he asks. “I mean, your body?” 

They’ve done this before, back in those few sun drenched autumn days they had in the cabin. When Martin was finding it difficult to adjust, feeling sometimes far too present, his whole body a raw nerve, and other times entirely disconnected from himself and the world. Physical touch was grounding at those times, and Jon offered it gladly, trusting Martin to respect the boundaries he set. Some days, Martin spent hours just tracing his fingers up and down the line of Jon’s arm, or rubbing warm circles into his back while Jon’s face tucked into the crook of his neck, Jon’s strong hands holding him, making him feel real. He hopes he can do something similar for Jon now, help him to feel grounded in his new body. 

Jon nods, his antennae tickling Martin’s face again, and Martin knows that it’s okay, it’s good, that Jon understands his intent and welcomes it. That he wants this new self to be less unknown. Martin returns his nod solemnly, and turns his attention back to Jon’s hand, clasped loosely in his, his thumb rubbing back and forth with mindless tactility. 

Slowly, he lets his touch stray upward, caressing along the length of Jon’s arm, examining the peculiar angle of the joints, brushing the soft sweep of hairs aside to catch the gleam of chitin beneath. Jon watches him, unblinking, the facets of his eyes catching the firelight and reflecting back a thousand shattered flames. 

“This is really weird,” Martin murmurs, then hastily clarifies: “In a good way! You feel...lovely, actually. It’s just different.” 

Jon is amused by that, Martin knows, and also pleased, his chest puffing up a little and his antennae undulating lazily. Martin keeps stroking up as far as Jon’s shoulder, then down across his upper back until he finds the joint of Jon’s wing, a thick, leathery knot that arches out into a curved rib, one of the struts that holds the wing taut. Jon stiffens slightly as Martin makes contact, and he pauses, lifting his hand away. 

“Should I stop?” he asks. Before, he knew where Jon’s boundaries were, where he was and wasn’t comfortable being touched. This is...a whole new landscape, though, with new boundaries needed. Jon’s hand squeezes his knee, and Martin knows that it’s fine, it’s just an entirely new sensation. A pleasant one, he thinks, from the way Jon’s antennae droop over his face, waving with slow contentment as Martin carefully strokes the upper edge of one wing. He tucks that information away for the future, because anything that can help Jon relax is an important addition to Martin’s toolkit.

The wing has a texture somewhere between paper and suede, delicate yet resilient, its surface faintly fuzzy. Martin caresses it gently, and draws his hand away after just a few moments; he doesn’t want to touch Jon’s wings too much while they’re still finding their shape. There’s a faint dusting of silvery scales on his palm, and Martin feels suddenly, savagely protective at how fragile this new part of Jon’s body is. A vulnerability he didn’t ask for, forced on him just like all the Archivist’s supposed gifts. Martin swallows down the familiar anger towards Eli—Jonah Magnus that rises in his throat. Right now, Jon is what’s important.

He pets both hands down from Jon’s shoulders to his chest, where the hair is densest, forming a thick ruff. It feels luxuriantly soft under Martin’s palms, and he digs his fingers into it, delighting in the sensation. It reminds him of his neighbors’ Newfoundland when he was a kid, though he doesn’t say as much; he’s not sure Jon would much appreciate the comparison.

“So…” he says instead. “Umm...no mouth? I suppose that confirms the whole ‘you not needing to eat’ thing, but I thought that the, umm—your compulsion, and the statements, don’t you need to be able to talk?” 

Jon gives a complicated looking shrug, and Martin knows that apparently the Archivist doesn’t need to vocalize his thoughts or his hunger, in this new existence. Eyes to see, and a voice in the mind of the whole world, that’s all Beholding needs him to be, so that’s all he is. Martin can feel the bitter grief in that knowledge, and so he cups Jon’s face in his hands, plants a firm kiss on his cheek. 

“That’s not all you are,” he tells him. “You also make a mean lasagne, and you hog the blankets at night, and you’re _rubbish_ at sudoku. And, you happen to be the most self-sacrificing idiot I know.” 

Martin knows that Jon thinks _he’s_ hardly one to talk about that, and he snorts a laugh and kisses him again, right between his antennae this time. 

“You’re the man I love,” he says. “Beholding doesn’t get to tell you who you are.” 

Jon loves him, Martin knows with an intensity that makes his chest ache, the space behind his ribs filled up with warmth and longing and trust. He pulls Jon into his arms, feeling the soft brush of bristles against his neck, all of Jon’s arms folding around him in return. This feeling, this is _theirs,_ and whatever Beholding can do to them, whatever Jonah Magnus can take from them, they still have this. Martin holds Jon close, and knows that it’s true. 

Nothing is okay, nothing in the world, but they have this. 

**Author's Note:**

> All that and I didn’t mention Kafka once, what an achievement!
> 
> Find me @cuttoothed on tumblr.


End file.
